Three ways to become a more consistent mixer

Let me ask a question… do you think that McDonald’s has the best hamburgers in the world? I don’t. I make a pretty mean burger myself.

So why do billions of people go to McDonald’s to eat?

No matter where you are in the world, you will find McDonald’s on some busy corner packed with hungry patrons.

I think the reason McDonald’s has been so successful is consistency. No matter where in this world you go to get a big Mac, it’s going to taste about the same as anywhere else.

It’s consistent.

Here are three ways that you can become more consistent in your mixing.

Use references mixes

I know you’ve heard me talk about this time after time, but it is THAT important. Our ears change over time. Not just a lifetime. They can change over the course of a day.

I’ve worked with “challenged” singers and musicians before where at the beginning of the day, I perceived their performance as, well… not great.

By the end of that day though, I found myself saying things to them like, “very good”.

It’s not necessarily that the singer improved over the course of the day, but my ears adjusted to the level of their ability.

My ears changed over the course of the day.

On the other hand, I have worked with awesome singers that blew me away within the first 10 minutes of our session only to find myself later that day saying, “I think we can get that better”.

Again, my ears changed over the course of the day.

Yours do too. Why when you’re mixing, why not reference something that you believe to be consistently good no matter where you are listening to it.

Referencing your mix gives you a chance to reset and center your ears.

Build workflows

I found over my years of mixing that if I mix what’s most important or what I want to hear the most in the mix, it tends to be louder. This is part of my workflow now. I just naturally mix what needs to be loudest–last. It’s a workflow. It my mixes more consistent as a result of it.

I tend to use the same reverb settings almost every mix. I’ve also discovered that some of my favorite mixers do the same thing. why would you want to waste your brainpower I’ll coming up the next big reverb that probably sounds just like the last big reverb. Find the reverb you like, and save it as a preset better yet, at this into your template. These are all part of your workflow. It helps you be more consistent.

Meet your deadlines

No matter how good you are, if you can turn in a master too your artist or producer when you say you can, then you are considered To be inconsistent.”Well I would love for so-and-so to mix it, but there’s no telling when we begin the master back.

The way that most engineers brains are put together, we would probably mix on assault from now until Kingdom come. But in the real world, we live and die about what we turn in as finished.